HLTV a 'how to' guide.

[JB]

What is HLTV?
 
HLTV is a Half Life program which allows people to watch a Half Life mod game whilst it is actually being played. When connected to a HLTV server, you are able to see the same as the players or see the game from different views.
 
Where can i download it for myself?
 
I'm too good to you so I've zipped the files and placed them HERE, these files should be placed in your C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\your-user-details\hltv directory, or wherever you installed Steam to at the start.
 
I should say these files are taken from the full HLDS program which can be found HERE.
 
 
How do i run this thing?
 
The 2 main files you need to cencern yourself with are HLTV.exe and HLTV.cfg, surely I don't need to say just what they're used for?
HLTV.cfg can be edited with any standard text editing package (wordpad, notepad etc) and comes with a fairly basic setup from the start that doesn't need editing a great deal to get up and running. The main sections you need to edit are as follows:-
 
// set HLTV proxy name as shown in scoreboard
name "HLTV Proxy"
 
Not important but can be edited to your wishes to display your clan name or whatever you want to display. Edit just the section within the "Speech marks".
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// delays broadcasting for 90 seconds
delay 90.0
In order to stop potential cheating from HLTV spectators a delay is introduced from the live action and what the spectators see. This delay can be anywhere from 0 to 90 seconds, lower is better for recording demos but spectators may need to be stopped from watching. Personally I set mine to 10s after having problems with a 0 seconds delay in the past.
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// if game server is password protected, enable this line
serverpassword "insert pass here"
 
If the HLTV server needs to connect to a passworded server this is where to add the password. The two // will need to be removed from before serverpassword to enable it's use. (default on)
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// proxy's admin password for rcon, commentator etc.
adminpassword "insert pass here"
Used to be known as Proxypassword
 
The easiest way to change settings on your HLTV server is by using RCON, that way you can control the precise starting and stopping of Demos in order to cutout the 20 mins of faff before the match.
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// Maximum number of spectators
Maxclients 0
 
Control the number of people that can connect to the HLTV and view the game, recommend to set this to 0 especially if your ingame yourself. This CAN be changed while the HLTV is running so be careful. If left blank will default to 128 spectators. :blink:
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// Connect to a server
Connect
 
This will tell the HLTV server to connect to, obviously change this to whatever server you want to connect to.
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Thats all the setup complete, my own config is shown below with all the useless stuff deleted.

// HLTV Proxy configuration file
 
name "-=[dMw]=- HLTV Proxy"
offlinetext "Please wait, loading...."
delay 10.0
maxrate 3500
chatmode 1
adminpassword "removed"
loopcmd 1 60 localmsg "You're watching -=[dMw]=- HLTV. Visit www.deadmen.co.uk" 5 -1 0.85 FFA000FF
signoncommands "voice_scale 2; voice_overdrive 16; volume 0.5; echo Voice adjusted for HLTV
echo hltv.cfg loaded.
 
connect 82.197.65.246:27015
serverpassword removed
maxclients 0

Once running this HLTV looks like this and is ready to rock and/or roll.
 

[JB]

Ok so it's now running and you want to stat it running recording demos.  There's just 3 main commands you need to use to do such things.

Record
Used to obviously start a demo recording, can also be used to start recording a demo with the name of your choice, makes things easier to see which is the 1st half of match and 2nd half etc.
record dmw-bod1
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Stoprecording
Personally I use this at the end of each half to seperate the match into 2 different demos, not necessary to do this though as demo's WILL run over from 1 map to the next, so you could do record dmw-oppo and leave it running the entire match and then stoprecording at the very end, you must stop the demos from recording before shutting the hltv down otherwise it can corrupt them and make them unviewable.
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Stop
Used to disconnect the HLTV server from the game server and stay disconnected, the HLTV is still running but not connected to anywhere.
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Retry
Used to either connect get the HLTV to reconnect to the game server after a Stop or will drop and reconnect to server again.
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Thats all you need for recording really, any of these commands can be typed into the hltv while its running or done through rcon while your actually ingame.  If someone wants to post an rcon guide then feel free.  Personally I use my commandmenu to access the various stuff needed here.  Makes life easy for me while playing.  Seen below:



If anyone wants their commandmenu.txt editing then shout and i'll do that for you too.  

[JB]

Final point, if your actually in a game and using the oppositions HLTV just check that it is what it says it is, type status in your cs/cz console and check the information shows a true HLTV proxy.
 
 
I've personally seen it before where a clan has just sent a spectator in with the name "HLTV Proxy" in a blatent attempt to cheat, HLTV's are easily recognised as different from spectators.

[Anonymous]

Nice work JB :clap:

Stickied for posterity